


Breathe

by broken_parts_that_might_fit



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-08
Updated: 2013-09-08
Packaged: 2017-12-26 00:31:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/959435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broken_parts_that_might_fit/pseuds/broken_parts_that_might_fit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're five strangers who have spent the last few years as a band. They're five best friends who lost themselves and each other along the way. They're five brothers who aren't sure what happened to their family, and in the end it's Harry who tentatively suggests the beach and who seems almost comically relieved when everyone just nods instead of telling him that it was an <em>awful idea</em> and <em>why would you want to do that</em> and <em>that's stupid, quit being so childish. </em></p><p>One shot. Hinted Ziam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first One Direction fic, my first time ever writing the boys. I left it without actual dialogue, because that's the way it seemed to work best. Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

It takes months of hard work and sleepless nights, screaming fans and hoarse voices before they find time to pencil in a vacation. Just the five of them, no bodyguards, no management, no fans. They love them, love them to pieces, but they almost desperately need the time away. They're all exhausted, mentally and physically and emotionally and there's a strain between them all that never used to be there and none of them like it. 

Liam snaps too much and Louis hides behind smiles and pranks that never reach his eyes. Harry tries to do _more_ work, to make up for the ache in his heart, and ends up falling flat on his face. Figuratively and literally. Zayn withdraws until he's just there, just someone they love but can't reach, and Niall... Niall is _Niall_ , how can he not be, just with less happy laughter and more sorrowful glances. 

They need time to figure themselves out, to find that happy, comfortable band they used to be that seems lost to the time and fame in equal measure. They need to spend the time working through their issues instead of pushing them away because it's easier to ignore things than sit down and talk about them. Easier to ignore twitter and it's racism and hatred. Easier to ignore the part of their fanbase that frequently goes too far and it scares them all to think they've gained hundreds of stalkers just for playing their music, for trying to make themselves and others happy. 

So they find an island in the tropics, somewhere safe and private, where they don't have to worry about anything. They politely decline the wi-fi they're offered at the hotel and unplug all the phones. They take the batteries from the remote controls and hide them. They dump board games and DVDs on the table and shove food in the fridge, and it's telling, so telling that when they're done unpacking they all stand there, unsure of where to start, unsure of what to do. 

They're five strangers who have spent the last few years as a band. They're five best friends who lost themselves and each other along the way. They're five brothers who aren't sure what happened to their family, and in the end it's Harry who tentatively suggests the beach and who seems almost comically relieved when everyone just nods instead of telling him that it was an _awful idea_ and _why would you want to do that_ and _that's stupid, quit being so childish._

Harry isn't sure when he started to expect hateful words and verbal abuse to be the answer to everything he says, but it hurts in a way nothing else has that he expected it from them. One Direction was his home, as much as his real one was, and he trusted each and every one of those boys with all of him. All of his secrets, his hopes, his fears and his dreams. They knew what scared him the most, and what made him deliriously happy. They knew when to intervene in interviews and when Harry would power on through on his own. They were so close, and now they were so far and he didn't know how to fix it. 

Out of all of them, Liam fixed things. Zayn was easy to talk to, and Louis was good for a shoulder to cry on, and Niall was the best person you could go to for a distraction, but Liam fixed their problems. He always had. He was the sensible, strong one who would sit them all down and demand they figure things out whenever a small argument threatened to turn into something more. Harry, and he was sure, the others had come to heavily rely on that. 

But Liam had stopped fixing things a long time ago, and none of them knew why.

Harry didn't want to even possibly think that the band was over. He didn't want to imagine that the last few years was all they had in them. Sure, things were crazy and hectic, and none of them had been very well prepared for what would happen, but they _worked_. They fit in such a crazy way and made music that people, people somehow really enjoyed, and Harry's heart ached alarmingly whenever he thought of it all going away. 

But the strain was palpable when they were together. They went down to the beach and set up their things, and toed at the water, but they were separate in a way that was so unlike them any paparazzi who could find their way to the private island would be hard pressed to find One Direction anywhere. Because that's not who they were right now. And Harry had to admit defeat after a few hours of sun and sand and silence that made him want to scream. They packed up, went back to their rooms, and spent it away from each other.

Somehow, against all odds, they were all still there in the morning. 

And the morning after that. 

And the morning after that. 

They had gotten the privacy and the time that they had wanted, but no one was doing anything about it. They were all waiting for someone else to make the first move but most of them were silent and Harry could only suggest the beach every day, because at least the crashing waves was better than the tomb like silence of their hotel. 

In the end, it was Niall who made the first move. Days after their arrival, when conversation only happened when there was something that needed to be said, he finally picked his head up and stomped his way across the beach, past everyone, to where Louis was throwing rocks into the water. His passing by rose a few eyebrows, but no one looked back up until there was an unholy shriek and a splash and Louis found himself floating in the water with only a vague sense of how he'd gotten there. 

The laugh was expected from Niall. And even Louis. They were the ones who lost their humor last, no matter how strained and forced and fake. But it wasn't expected from Harry, who clapped his hand over his mouth like he'd done something wrong and stared wide eyed back at them all. But before his mind could somberly wonder when laughing had become something to _fear_ , his eyes were crinkling at the corners and the laugh was bubbling free from behind his hands and he was racing off to jump into the water next to Louis and dunk him under again. 

It came back to them slowly after that. They talked a little more, about things other than the weather and their job – when did it become a _job_? They smiled more, laughed a little, but it took days before Niall and Harry and Louis got Liam into the water with them, and a day or two after that before Zayn put his book down up on the shore and watched them. 

It was a hard won victory, but Harry wouldn't let anyone think too hard on why. He just splashed until his arms hurt and threw himself on people to dunk them under, his laughter starting to feel more natural as the hours passed. They had even gotten a smile from Zayn, towards the end of the night, and they celebrated with board games and movies and food. It wasn't the same, they weren't back yet, but it was a hopeful start. 

The middle of their stay found them in the water, splashing and wrestling, shrieking with laughter and far more comfortable with each other than they had been in months. Or even longer. Zayn was reading, but every so often he'd glance up and smile behind his glasses, feeling a bit of warmth that had nothing to do with the sun and everything to do with four other young boys, wrapping around his heart. 

It took a few hours before the shrieks of laughter turned into shrieks of panic. 

The sun was going down, the water churned up all around them, and Zayn's head snapped up, book set aside immediately. All of the boys in the water were leaping around with their arms outstretched, and Zayn was shouting at them from the shore, demanding to know what in the hell was going on, half intending to wade in just to find out, when Louis shouted the loudest of them all and broke under a wave. 

He came up with Liam, arms around his waist, and between him and Harry and Niall they managed to make it to the shore before Zayn just jumped right in. Liam's eyes were closed, and they laid him down before crowding him, concerned cries of _Liam, Liam, Liam!_ no doubt alerting anyone close by that something was wrong. 

Zayn tried twice to get their attention, to reason with them, before he just shoved them all back and hit his knees in the sand, throwing a leg over Liam's. His hands fluttered at his cheeks, his nose, his throat, before they ended up at his chest, laced together.

He put all he had into it, and it took the concerned boys a moment to break through their panic and feel guilty for not thinking of it first. They watched Zayn, and of course it would be Zayn, giving CPR, and felt tears prick at their eyes as they clutched at each other. No one thought to run back for a phone, no one thought to call an ambulance. It should have been their first thought, but instead their first thought, in however long, was to stay together. 

Zayn didn't feel guilt. He felt fear. It crept up his throat, making him choke as he did his best to remember how CPR was supposed to go. He had never done it before. Liam was the one who knew all of this, Liam was the one who should be here, taking charge. Liam was the one who wanted to save people, all Zayn wanted was to make music and live a happy life with the four boys at his side. 

But not saving him now wasn't an option, and Zayn worked on him hard, pushing through the fear and the panic and the screams in his head that wanted to _demand_ to know how they had lost their, arguably, best swimmer to the ocean, of all things. He wanted to shake them all and scream until his throat was blown out, but all he did was push on his chest and breathe into his mouth until Liam choked under him, coughing out water onto the sand, and Zayn felt breathless and relieved and shaken, all at once.

He couldn't stop the boys then, and they crowded Liam, hands pushing back at his hair, smoothing down his arms and across his sand covered back. There were hands on Zayn too, crushing hugs that felt so foreign but not unwelcome, and he clutched at them all in a daze, until Niall ran to meet the paramedics that were making their way down the beach and Liam was looking up at him with a look Zayn couldn't quite decipher in his eyes. 

_What happened,_ Zayn wanted to ask, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip hard enough to break the skin, but he didn't feel a thing, _what happened Liam, what's going on?_ But all he could do was slide off of Liam and onto the sand, pushing his hair back with shaky fingers as Harry and Louis tried to talk to him and were met with silence. 

He wasn't trying to ignore them, not this time, not now, but his mind was spinning and he couldn't make heads or tails out of anything. His chest felt too tight, and his throat hurt, like _he_ was the one who had nearly drowned, and he didn't breathe again until he felt cold, wet, shaking fingers curl around his own moments before Niall and the paramedics were there and he had to let Liam go, though all he wanted to do was keep holding on.

It was almost funny, how an hour later found them in the hospital waiting room, chairs pushed together, crowding into each other's personal spaces like they hadn't done in months. Each hand was taken by someone else, a circle of tight grips and white knuckles. They knew realistically that Liam would be fine, that he couldn't have sustained that much damage, that Zayn had _saved_ him, but irrational fear was a big thing and none of them could shake it off. 

It didn't matter what had happened to them. Not now. It would later, when they would sit down to talk of it and try and let go of fears and doubts and insecurities, but for now no one was thinking about twitter hate or obsessive fans or crushing workloads. It would matter later why Liam had gone under the water, passing out if what Harry said could be believed, and it would matter a _lot_ , but for now they had each other, really had each other for the first time in a long time and they knew things would be okay.


End file.
